On March 30th and 31st, Twitch streamer and FaZe Clan co-owner Nicholas “Nickmercs” Kolcheff hosted the “Apex Legends” edition of the MFAM Gauntlet. Of the 60 participants, only 2 were women, which displeased some.
What is this tournament? The MFAM Gauntlet is one of a series of tournaments hosted by Nickmercs. On March 30th and 31st, 2023, the “Apex Legends” edition of the tournament took place, where 20 teams of pro players and streamers competed in the new TDM mode for a prize pool of $200,000.
A team consists of a captain, who is determined by the organizers, and two other players. The captains can choose these themselves. That’s when the trouble started, because by the time all teams were set, only two women had made it: Laurice “GuhRL” Habibi and Clara “ClaraAtWork” Gomez.
GuhRL is a player and caster with the American organization TSM. ClaraAtWork is primarily active as a Twitch streamer; She spends 90% of her airtime on Apex Legends (via TwitchTracker).
Apex Legends Gameplay Trailer
Women’s quota in the tournament too low
What opinions are there? The discussion was stimulated by the streamer and competitive player lightlyrs. She pointed out the absence of women in the tournament on Twitter. This led to a larger conversation, with a number of players putting forward their positions.
Patrick “hundredz” Kwon, coach of Orga SPIRE, explained that there are women with enough talent to become professionals. However, they wouldn’t play at the same level as male pros: “You can’t keep posting clips of yourself in Diamond rank, only playing in the Celes Cup, streaming mostly for content and then expecting to be picked before Sweet”.
To clarify: While Diamond is not to be scoffed at in Apex Legends, there are also the Master and Apex Predator ranks above it. The Celestial Cup is a smaller tournament in Apex Legends. “Sweet” could mean Apex player Christopher “sweetdreams” Sexton, who wasn’t actually at the tournament.
hundredz added that he would like more opportunities for women, but the marketing of some female players could mean they are not taken seriously.
Twitch streamer Diegosaurs takes a different position: women just wouldn’t get the same chances to show off their skills: “If you just played with a girl and treated her like a guy, you would see that it’s no different ” (via Twitter).
Organizers invite people they know
How do the women see it themselves? GuhRL, team captain of one of the winning teams, explained that organizers of such tournaments usually invite people they know and respect. The captains would then either choose the most suitable teammates or their friends.
Ultimately, however, it seems more important to her to draw more attention to Apex as such: She has seen a growing admiration for the game among some Nickmercs buddies and that is nice. We’ve included their tweets for you here:
ClaraAtWork, who placed 12th with her team, wrote on Twitter on April 1 that nobody is entitled to anything and that you have to work hard. She didn’t mention whether her post was related to the discussion, though, but it seems likely.
The organizer Nickmercs did not participate in the discussion on Twitter.
In Apex Legends, men and women compete together in tournaments. As a result, some events, such as the 2022 TSM Invitationals, require each team to field a female player. In the tournament organized by TSM, five of the top ten players at the end of the 60-player event were women, including GuhRL.
It’s different in Valorant, there are VCT Game Changers for women and marginalized genders. But there, too, sensitivity is required when putting together the teams:
Twitch streamer introduces women’s team for Valorant, gets in trouble for hiring the wrong women